(Boston, MA) Playwright Joe Orton was an out gay man at a time when it was not only unfashionable but also highly illegal. Orton died in August 1967. Just one month shy of the passing of Britain’s Sexual Offences Act (amendment), which made acts such as kissing, hand holding, or plain old love between two men legal in the privacy of one’s home (it was still illegal to be homosexual in public. Baby stepping progress is still progress). Orton further pushed the hetero-normative envelope by incorporating his penchant for personal freedom in his writings. Orton’s flagrant disdain for authority and hypocritical social ethics are on proud display in Hub Theatre Co’s production of Loot. Orton’s script is not successful as art but it’s message rings profoundly clear: convention can go hang itself. Continue reading →

(Boston) I’ve always been skeptical of the “martyr” concept but enjoy it when it’s depicted well. A martyr trades one life for an immortal one, living beyond death through the ideas he championed in life. He’s not always a hero and he doesn’t always come from a selfless place, but he sacrifices himself all the same.

In Patrick Gabridge’s Fire On Earth, William Tyndale (Bob Mussett) works to translate the Bible into English. It’s 1524, King Henry VIII is contemplating divorce from his first wife, and the Catholic Church has a stranglehold on the Latin Bible. The Church decides when it’s read, who’s able to understand it, and what it means to the largely illiterate English masses. Religion isn’t personal, it’s a business. Mussett’s Tyndale, with a blissful naïveté in his face, opts to preach with his new translation. Sir Thomas More and the bishops are not pleased. Continue reading →